The former chief executive officer of the Enron Corporation has been sentenced to just over 24 years in prison for his role in one of the biggest corporate scandals in U.S. history.
Jeffrey Skilling's sentence is the longest of any Enron defendant. The 52-year-old faced a maximum of 30 years in prison for fraud and conspiracy charges.
During his sentencing Monday, Skilling insisted he was innocent but also expressed remorse for the collapse of the company that led to the loss of some 5,000 jobs.
In September, the company's chief financial officer Andy Fastow received a six-year prison sentence as part of a deal to testify against Skilling and Enron founder Kenneth Lay.
Lay was convicted of conspiracy and fraud charges in the energy trading company's collapse, but those charges were erased after he died in July.
At its peak, Enron was one of the largest U.S. companies before a series of accounting scandals and shoddy business deals left it bankrupt.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP, Bloomberg and Reuters.